TwinBee
TwinBee is one of the main fighters that first appeared in the TwinBee series, then later on in the Parodius series. His weapon set is based on his own games, consisting of bell powers of Twinbee-fame being translated into Gradius-weaponry. Backround Twinbee hails from his titular cartoon-themed vertical-scrolling shoot-em up series.The player control a blue bee-shaped anthropomorphic spacecraft, in most games shooting or punching at airborne enemies while literally throwing bombs on ground ones similarly to Namco's Xevious. In contrast to the series sci-fi theme of Konami's Gradius series, the fictional universe of the TwinBee series is set in a cartoon-like world featuring several kinds of anthropomorphic creatures in addition to regular human characters, such as the pilots Light, Pastel and Dr.Cinnamon. The series proved to be very successful at Japan in 90's , spawning very long-running radio drama series which helped to broaden up Twinbee's universe: for example, pilots were first nameless, but were given names in the radio drama, which then were canonised for the later games The series also produced off few spinoff games, and few anime adaption episodes based on the radio drama. The main power-ups in the TwinBee are yellow bells that the player can uncover by shooting at the floating clouds. The player must shoot these bells to keep them afloat and after shooting them a number of times, they will change colors, allowing the player to add new abilities to their spacecraft. It should be noted that Twinbee's and Winbee's pilots Light and Pastel don't appear in Parodius-series in any form, expect as a visual reference at Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius: Forever With Me. TwinBee joined Tako's Star Fighter team in Parodius Da! to help him defeat Tako's father Golgado Tako. Oddly enough Twinbee was made look like his "female" counterpart Winbee from original Twinbee for arcades: this've been due the Twinbee's design not being so known before he got his modern appearance in Detana Twinbee! ''After then Twinbee was included in two more Parodius-games, joined by Winbee. Both were replaced by Ace in Sexy Parodius. According to one of the Parodius games, Twinbee is 13 years old, but ironically, the Vic Viper was built in the 6000's, and TwinBee was created in 2801, suggesting that TwinBee was brought in from that year, as if they found him in their present, he would be over a 1,000 years old (even older than the Vic Viper himself), and in bad condition. Weapon Set '''M' = Missile, "ROCKET PUNCH" D''' '''escription:Twinbee's most strongest weapon. Twinbee launches his rocket gloves (or earlier in Parodius Da!, hands) forward so far to hit the other side of the screen: after then they return back at him. This can go through weak enemies, and if hit walls or damaging a strong enemy, they burst into nothing. Rocket Punch has much more impact area than usual missiles, but might be hard to use against ground enemies. Origin: In most Twinbee-games, when Twinbee's hand would be hit, he would lose it. Losing both hands again made him unable to launch down any bombs. To prevent this, an ambulance would be called to repair Twinbee and give him new pair of hands. In Parodius Da!, when Twinbee uses Rocket Punch, he would launch his hands off, much to refer to his games where his hands were detachable and vulnerable. Punching would become his one of the staple moves he would use in later games in his series, like Pop'n Twinbee ''and it's spinoff, ''Rainbow Bell Adventures. Starting from At the last regular Twinbee-game, Twinbee Yahho, one of the chargable moves you can choose in the game are red punching gloves, which let Twinbee lauch flurry of punches at his enemies. Twinbee would also appear as a playable character in Dream Mix Tv: World Fighters, a massive crossover fighting game developed by Hudson, Konami and Takara. One of Twinbee's standard attacks is Rocket Punch, which lets him launch off his hands in a similar fashion to Parodius-games. The gloves were kept white, though. In Otomedius, Madoka's default missile is the Rocket Punch, which behaves the same way, expect slower. D''' = Double, "TAIL GUN" '''Desription: Behaves exactly the same like the tail gun from Gradius II: a regular shot is given a second bullet which is fired out the tail of the ship instead. Origin: While it seems to omit the Twin Cannon from Twinbee-series, it might have been opted to give Twinbee more defense behind. L''' = Laser, "3-WAY" '''Description: Twinbee's cannon is upgraded by giving his usual shot two more bullets that fire 45 degrees diagonally, one up and one down. Origin: 3-Way was originally acguired from a small bell, an uncommon powerup found by bombing enemies. Depending on the game Twinbee would acguire it by using bells as well. O''' = Twinbee Option, "FUNSHIN" '''Description: This option will act exactly like the Funshin options from Twinbee-series, which retracts to your main fighter's position when you stop the movement, making it less useful than normal option. Additionally, you can just eguip three of them. Origin:Throughout Twinbee-games, when Twinbee would acguire a Green Bell, he would be given three shadowy offshoots that were attached at him. These could imitate Twinbee's movements and gave him extra firepower, though they rarely would use upgraded weapons when he did, depending on the game. These also could attack the ground enemies with bombs, but when the arms of the player are blown off, the offshoots lose their arms also. In early Twinbee-games the Funshin-power would give out transparent versions of Twinbee: this is used as their design in Parodius Da!. Starting from Pop'n Twinbee, the Funshin would become smaller, solid copy's of Twinbee, a design to be used for the rest Parodius-games. Their design were borrowed from the Tail Barrier-powerup from Detana Twinbee!-game, which came year before Pop'n Twinbee. ?' = ''Shield, "FIELD BARRIER" '''Description: A circular huge barrier is attached to your ship. When you are hit several times by bullets or collisions, the Barrier gets smaller until it's lost. In Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius, this would become Barrier, ''a bubble-like shield covering Twinbee entirely, and acting like ''Force Field from Gradius II. Origin: When Twinbee would acguire a Red Bell in Twinbee-series, he would be given a Field Barrier, usually called as Barrier. In most Twinbee-games this was a circular force field, which would protect him from bullets or collisions between walls. The radius of Field Barrier was quite large, making the powerup somewhat easy to be deplenished, despite it being able to absorb five hits. This kind of barrier was used in Parodius Da! and Gokujō Parodius!. In Pop'n Twinbee, the Field Barrier was improved by reducing the radius and making it an orb that covered Twinbee entirely.The Barrier though was now slightly weaker since it could now take four hits, but it made up for it by being not so likely to be gone fast due to it's small size. This kind of barrier would be used again in Twinbee Yahho!, which gave Barrier a more bubble-like apperance but was again made weaker by deplenishing off after three hits: In Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius Twinbee would replace the Field Barrier with Barrier from Twinbee Yahho!. Category:Main Characters Category:Fighters